The only thing more fascinating than a director's body of work is his or her personal life. It's often a key to the themes that run wild throughout their filmography. In the case of Quentin Tarantino, his father (or lack thereof) seems to have influenced several of the director's movies.

Take Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) in Django Unchained, for example. He's a father figure to Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), just as Schultz (Christoph Waltz) becomes one for Django (Jamie Foxx). In the "Gold Watch" segment of Pulp Fiction, we know that Butch (Chandler Lindauer/Bruce Willis) has never known his father, and the watch that belonged to the fallen veteran is the only link he has to the man. These are just brief observations, but if we dig around, we could speculate on deeper connections.

Tarantino has made it clear that his father, Tony — an actor, writer, director and producer — isn't someone he's close to. "Well, I never knew my father. That's the thing. I never knew him. He wanted to be an actor. Now he's an actor only because he has my last name. But he was never part of my life. I didn't know him. I've never met him," the filmmaker once said. His parents split before QT was born, but according to Tony, QT's grandpa was an early Westerns star, so Hollywood is definitely in the bloodline.

Website Dangerous Minds recently posted a video showing the acting work of Tony Tarantino (he also codirected the film Blood Money), which isn't exactly impressive, but offers an interesting peek at the Tarantino lineage. Had things been better between the men, and had Tony not tried to glom onto his son's fame (according to the director), could you see Tony being a wise guy character in one of QT's films? We definitely could.

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